After 17 years of working in the same industry I felt it was time for a break to explore other options. So in 2017 I left my career behind in outdoor advertising sales and began to travel and see what I was missing out there in the world. My intentions were to take a few years and live life in a way that few of us get to experience once we begin our careers. This was an exciting prospect; living a life free of responsibility, no alarms to wake up to, no urgent calls to take and far less time spent indoors and in front of a computer screen. It all sounds pretty great and indeed it was!

The first place I went was Honduras for a few months which was incredible. That trip reminded me how much I missed traveling and how exciting it is to be in a different part of the world exploring and experiencing new things and people on a daily basis. The plan after that was to spend a lot of time up north at the cottage during the summer months and to travel abroad once again in the winter. Which lead to my trip to Thailand in 2018. It was not really on my radar as a place I’d like to visit initially but things unfolded the way they did and it turned out to be a great experience that I will never forget.

Now it was time for me to dig into my other love; riding my motorcycle. So in the summer of 2018 I decided to ride from Toronto to San Diego and back. It was an incredible experience that I will always remember and be grateful for. It took about a month which included a week in the Portland area staying with some family. I wasn’t finished with 2018 yet, next up was a ride to the Maritimes and Newfoundland. I had never been out that way so to travel it by motorcycle was a real treat. I saw so many brilliant landscapes and met some amazing people along the way. Even reconnected with an old friend from the industry who had relocated to St John’s a number of years ago to get away from the hustle and bustle of Toronto.

Next up on the bucket list for my motorcycle adventures was the biggest and oldest motorcycle rally in North America; Sturgis in South Dakota. It was a wild ride and an amazing experience which I am glad that I did and something that I will never forget. After riding back from Sturgis to Toronto in 2 days, I felt it was time to think about what’s next for me in terms of work and career path. So after some considerable thought I decided I would get back into the OOH advertising world and began looking for a job again.

This was the end of 2019 and we all know what happened at the beginning of 2020 so my aspirations to get back to work in the outdoor advertising world were put on hold. This turn of events made me reassess what it is I would do for work so I decided to wait it out and hope the pandemic would pass soon. Two years later and finally it looked like things were coming back in a way that would make sense for me to consider looking for a job again. But did I really want to continue my career in advertising sales or consider a new career path?

The plan was to take the summer, do a bunch more motorcycle trips then look for something in the Fall. My first trip was to New England then the plan was to do a longer ride out west to Alberta and BC to visit some friends. At this point I was still undecided about what to do in the Fall but while on my bike trip to New England I was contacted by a former colleague wondering if I was available and looking to get back into the biz.

I was definitely interested and felt that it was worth looking into at the very least even though I wasn’t sure about coming back to the same industry I had left over 5 years ago. The process was very organic and everything about it felt right. I always had it in the back of my mind that if I were to get back into this industry at this stage that it would be in this way. One thing I have learned over the time off that I took is that it is up to each of us to decide what it is we want for ourselves and to make that happen by being true to yourself. This feels right and I am grateful for the opportunity I have been given to be a part of this industry once again with an organization I believe in.

Although I will miss my ability to travel and live free of responsibility, I realize there is more to life than that. There’s so many great people in this industry who have welcomed me back and made me feel like I have made the right choice in returning. Advertising is something that touches most of our lives on some level and I believe in OOH and its ability to reach people effectively while we return to life as we knew it before the pandemic.

I hope this article will be of interest to those of you who read it and perhaps even inspire some of you to take the time and step outside your career for more than just a few weeks of the year to see if it is something that you would come back to given the choice. That is what I did and can say it’s the best thing I have done for myself thus far in my life. And now for the next chapter, I’m ready and can’t wait to see what it brings!